Process of Learning (Progress)

Most of us begin learning an art form eager to demonstrate its highest levels of skill with ease. When our first attempts don’t manifest a master’s skill, we become discouraged. We begin to think we may not have whatever the mysterious thing is that makes some people good at the art. Unable to realize our desires, we succumb to frustration and waning motivation. This thought that we are missing some essential ingredient for success becomes a self-defeating belief that stops us before we can really get started. At the first sign of imperfect performance we say, “I guess I’m just not good at this.” This all-too-common downward spiral is based on a false perception of the normal process of learning a new skill.

The truth about learning a skill is that it involves far more mistakes and failed attempts than it does successes. What separates a master from a never-was is that the master accepts that mistakes and failures are part of the learning process, and the never-was thinks he should be able to produce masterpieces from day one.

The distance between having a desire to be good at something and the realization of a high level of skill can seem infinite. It’s normal to have a hard time believing any amount of training and practice could ever produce a master’s skill. That’s because we didn’t see the process the master went through to become a master at his craft. We may see a master perform their skill with ease and grace and say to ourselves, “I’ll never be as great as the master.” I call this the problem with greatness. The problem is the idea that greatness is something that a person just has. The truth is that greatness is not a quality a person does or doesn’t have. Greatness is in the perception of the observer. It’s the idea separate from its living, breathing truth. Somebody that we perceive as great may not see themselves as so. They know the process they have gone through and are still going through. They see their mistakes and flaws. The truth is that everyone, as we see them, is the product of a process with many steps, stumbles, and falls that have made them what they are.

Our ideas of things are deceptive. They are based on a glimpse of something or someone at one point along their process, and omit the rest of the process or even the notion that there is a process at all. Not including the role of process in our images of things generates a feeling of being trapped in our current state of being. We feel that we are either able to do something or not. That’s a normal way to feel in the absence of understanding process. Including an understanding of everything as in process, we can see the roads of possibility open before us. All we have to do is invest the time, effort, a bit of determination and a whole lot of patience; accept that we will make many mistakes, have some failures, and turn out some mediocre work as we go along. As we continue to develop ourselves, the time will come when we can recognize we are capable of performing decent skill in our chosen art, and some may call us master.